Cetec ERP
Internship Project
Duration
3 Months
My Role
Concept Development
Design
UX Research
Dev Handoff
Teammates
Director of Design
Executive Leadership
Staff Engineer
Front end developer
Making the Work Order Less Work
End-to-end redesign of the Work Order experience, one of the most heavily used workflows in Cetec ERP
Background
Understanding the Product
What is Cetec ERP?
Cetec is a web-based ERP that manufacturers use to run their business, including inventory, order handling, labor and parts management, and more.
You can think of it as a factory's digital brain.
Simply put, it's a lot of complexity in one system.
The Feature In Question
At the Heart of It All: The Work Order
The Work Order holds all the materials, steps, and labor details needed to build a product and is central to what happens on the factory floor.
It’s like a recipe, punch card, and progress tracker rolled together, and lots of people rely on it daily, from floorworkers and supervisors to upper management.
The Problem
The Current Experience was Functional but Clunky
Yes, the Cetec Work Order is at the heart of building products, but it had become a bit of a Frankenstein as functionality was added to it over time.
Sales and Support often heard that the interface was overwhelming and hard to use.
With so many users depending on the Work Order each day, improving the experience was a key opportunity.
Our Goal
Make the Work Order simple, intuitive, and easy to use.
The New Design:
Want to jump straight to the solution? Check out the redesigned Work Order homepage designed for Floorworker ease of use.
Research
Internal perspective
Internal Stakeholder Interviews
Hearing from stakeholders in Leadership, Engineering, Sales, Support, and Marketing helped me to understand how the business thinks about the Work Order as well as technical or strategic constraints that I should consider.
Stakeholder insights:
1.
The Work Order is one of Cetec's most used experiences
2.
There are two main users: Managers who want clear digestible data and Floorworkers who prioritize ease of use
3.
Sales often uses the Work Order in demos, so the new design could impact new business
User perspective
Watching real work happen
After understanding the internal perspective, I needed to hear from actual users.
I met with 8 users across 5 manufacturers that produce a variety of products, ranging from wire harnesses to biomedical devices. In these sessions, users walked me through how they use the Work Order in their own environment, pointing out frustrations and showing their workarounds.
These interviews gave me a strong foundation for understanding user needs, different usage scenarios, and where improvements would make the biggest impact.
'Show Me Session' Insights
Many users open multiple tabs to give themselves easy access to essential information
Industry-specific regulations can affect workflows and feature usage
Managers want to easily track progress at a glance
Some Floorworkers complete an entire Work Order from start to finish, while others handle only one step
Companies vary in their instruction format needs
Scope
Focusing on Where We Could Help the Most
With a clearer picture of user needs and opportunity areas, we decided to focus our V1 redesign on floorworker users because their needs are more specific and consistent. We also focused on the Work Order homepage because we wanted to provide users with a good jumping off point.
We plan to address managers in future iterations, but improvements aimed at floorworkers will benefit everyone because of the improved access to information and better process visibility.
Defining our Core Goals:
Goal 1:
Give users everything they need in one place
Goal 2:
Improve how instructions are displayed and how forms are filled out
Goal 3:
Make it easier to see where a part is on the shop floor
Narrowing down functions and features
We couldn't tackle the entire Work Order UI, it made sense to focus just on the key homepage features that Floorworkers interacted with most
The Project Scope highlighted in pink
Discovery & Current Design
Assessing the Current Design
Understanding What We are Working With
I started by diving into the user interface to understand challenges that users face
Limited Visibility
Managers and those responsible for end-to-end processes must jump through multiple hoops to get the information they need
Users must scroll the carousel to see the full scope of the Work Order, requiring them to hold information in memory
No Clear Call to Action
The primary actions of the Work Order are to log time and move location, but these buttons are tucked away
Buttons for key actions don't include labels, only icons that not everyone understands
Buttons to start the work timer and move locations are difficult to find
Clunky Instructions
Instructions, referenced documents, and supporting images live in seperate disconnected places
Instructions are hard to access and understand
Images needed for instructions live in seperate disconnected places
Difficult to Access Images and Essential Documents
Instructions, referenced documents, and supporting images live in seperate disconnected places
To access images and documents needed to get their job done, users must leave their context and hunt for information
Iteration & Feedback
Early Iterations & User Feedback Sessions
With these goals in mind, I created a new design for the Work Order, using my research findings and stakeholder input to guide decision making. I aimed to streamline and simplify while also taking the Cetec design system into consideration.
I built an interactive prototype and met with 4 Cetec users to get feedback. As users walked through task flows with the new design, I heard their thoughts about understandability, usefulness, and practicality.
Overall, these sessions confirmed that the redesign was moving in the right direction and gave me the final refinements I needed to make the design stronger and more usable.
Illustration with an early Work Order iteration
New Start Work Button
"This does seem like it'll fix the guys starting work on the wrong location. Cause it's not just one start work button.
Cause what's happening right now is they start work and they've started work on the wrong location. They forget to change it."
-Production Floor Manager
Inline Document Preview
"Sometimes they (floorworkers) have done the job enough they don't really need to see the pictures.
Sometimes it's kind of complex and having the instructions and the pictures visible at the same time are beneficial"
-Production Floor Manager
User Feedback TLDR
People appreciated being able to preview documents and see images inline
The new 'Start' button was a hit because it would help prevent common mistakes
People appreciated the ability to expand and collapse operations and instructions as it gave them control and made the page feel less overwhelming
Several people encouraged me to keep simplifying; many floorworkers aren't tech savy, so a streamlined, task-focused layout made them feel more comfortable
The Final Designs
Introducing a New and Improved Work Order
content
Goal 1: Everything in One Place
Information at Your Fingertips
content
Documents and images can be accessed inline and previewed while maintaining the ability to download, if needed
Goal 1: Everything in One Place
4 clicks -> 1 click
content
Documents and images can be accessed inline and previewed while maintaining the ability to download, if needed
Goal 1: Everything in One Place
Information at Your Fingertips
content
Documents and images can be accessed inline and previewed while maintaining the ability to download, if needed
Goal 1: Everything in One Place
Essential functions easy to access
content
Floorworkers can easily understand where they are and what's left to be done on the Work Order
Goal 2: Improve Instructions & Forms
Information at Your Fingertips
content
Steps can be further expanded to show relevant instructions
Goal 2: Improve Instructions & Forms
Supporting Custom Needs
content
Companies with strict regulatory requirements can easily customize and embed forms to meet their specific needs
Goal 3: Improve Visibility of Progress
Always Available Time Spent
content
At a glance, Managers can assess a Work Order's progress
Goal 3: Improve Visibility of Progress
Always Available Chronological Progress
content
Floorworkers can easily understand where they are and what's left to be done on the Work Order
Dev Handoff
Time to Build
I created a developer hand-off document that outlines every component of the new design and how they should behave across different scenarios, including edge cases, visual states, and interactions.
Writing this document was a great exercise in clarity as I needed to think through each part of the system and ensure that all behaviors were captured and understandable.
Clarity was also key as my development team was in India and I needed to make sure that they could rely on the document to get the information since I couldn’t be there in person.
Key Takeaways
Final Thoughts
This internship was a crash course in real-world UX. I had the chance to work on a meaningful product design challenge that involved collaborating with people from different departments and across the world, and importantly, working directly with users.
My user interviews and design feedback sessions were a real highlight. Being able to hear from people who use the Work Order as part of their daily job gave me unique insights and helped me to advocate for improvements. I kept these people in mind throughout my design process and reflected on them when I made design decisions. The user research also connected the product team with users in a new way. Seeing how people used the product in the real world was an eye opener for everyone!